The Top 5 DEI Questions People Leaders Asked Us in 2022

One of our favorite ways to connect with people leaders is the Ask Me Anything format. Nothing like an hour of rapid-fire questions to keep us on our toes!

In 2022, we were invited into some extremely passionate and inquisitive People leader communities, through AMAs with? CPOHQ + Knoetic AI ,? BrightHire 's?Shine community, and? Leapsome 's?People Over Perks community, among others. Below are five of the best #dei questions your fellow #peopleleaders asked and our in-the-moment responses.?

1. What do candidates care about when they say they want more diversity?

Danielle Little, SHRM-SCP :?This is very important. Wanting #diversity means several things for candidates. Usually, they want to know that they have a path to succeed. Seeing leadership look like them means that someone with a similar background was able to get to that role.

They also want to know that a company "walks the walk." While candidates rarely have access to deeper internal data, they can see the staff page and leadership makeup. But it's less about whether they see themselves represented visually, and more that experientially and structurally the organization can deliver for them—with visual diversity being a litmus test for that.

Additionally, candidates often feel that diversity is table stakes—that if a company can't deliver on representation, how can they also provide the #equity, #inclusion, and #belonging that would make their workplace experience great?

2. What is the best approach for weaving DEIB into a company's culture vs. solely as an initiative? Any companies/teams that you've seen do this exceptionally well??

Joshua De Leon :?Love this question! The first question you can ask is: who has "ownership" or responsibility over DEIB today? Is there no owner? Just TA? Does the CEO have a perspective? What often happens is that #deib becomes, in practice, simply "D," an entirely recruitment-focused diversity effort, and other functions abdicate responsibility or even interest.

What often happens is that DEIB becomes, in practice, simply "D," an entirely recruitment-focused diversity effort

How do you solve this? An?assessment?is where we recommend companies start. You want to understand a baseline of how employees are feeling, how your structures and processes org-wide match up to best practices, and to what extent different groups are having differential experiences. Then, you can build a roadmap, informed by that data, to launch programs and process changes across all of E(quity), I(nclusion), and B(elonging).

The companies we’ve seen do this exceptionally well are committed to a "full court press" around DEIB. For example, Danielle Little, SHRM-SCP recently led an entire performance management retooling process that rooted DEIB best practices into a fully reimagined performance management process for one of our clients. This is an example of baking DEIB into the very structure of the org, touching all employees.

3. For a startup of 40 people with growth needs but with limited HR management/strategy, what should be the priority to start with? HRMS? HRIS? Hiring partner? Salary bands? Performance reviews? Learning & Dev?

Liz Kofman-Burns :?I would start with defining job levels and career paths. Because when you lay out clear job levels, you set the organization up for long-term success in terms of #talentaquisition, #engagement and #performancemanagement. If you have job levels, then you can make sure you have clear, fair salary bands. You can make sure that the criteria for evaluating performance are clear, and that promotion criteria are also clear. When you go to write job descriptions, you'll be able to quickly define what you're looking for each role—that same levels criteria! Instead of a massive laundry list of wishlist items that turn off candidates. Managers are better prepared to have growth and development conversations. It's truly foundational for a successful #hrstrategy.

Equity issues around growth, pay, and promotions are the most common issues we see that hold companies back from their DEIB goals

In fact, equity issues around growth, pay, and promotions are the most common issues we see that hold companies back from their DEIB goals. So you really want to set your company up to avoid these issues as early as possible. It’s not easy though, so you want to make sure you devote enough time and?resources?to get it done right.

4. How important is it to have a dedicated DEIB leader & how do you know when the time is right?

Joshua De Leon :?The million dollar question! (Or at least, a 6-figure question...) This is a nuanced answer.?

1. First, some questions to consider: Is anyone accountable for DEIB right now? Is DEIB a current priority or just a notional one? If there have been no concrete efforts or intentionality behind DEIB to date, then whoever is writing the JD for that dedicated DEIB leader role is going to have their work cut out for them.
2. Is there any "baseline" information about the DEIB health of the organization? Has a formal assessment, or even just a pulse survey, been implemented recently that gives you insights into how employees are experiencing the workplace?
3. Does the company, or at least the leadership, understand the case for DEIB (including the?business case, although of course there are plenty of reasons for why DEIB is important)?

I raise these questions because a dedicated DEIB leader (e.g. a Chief Diversity Officer, though some orgs start by having the DEIB lead be in the #peopleops function at a manager/senior manager or director role)?can be incredibly impactful. But—we often see them be disempowered structurally from the get-go, such that they can't be as impactful as they should be.

Usually, we recommend all companies invest in an assessment, so that they know what their starting point is and where the biggest pain points are. This can happen alongside a DEIB leader if one exists at the org, or immediately prior (and thus informing how the DEIB leader JD is constructed and what priorities they are briefed on when they enter). Then, the company has to be willing to dedicate a budget to the DEIB role. Not just the salary, but also the ability to implement programs.

Ultimately, there should be leaders (and supporting staff) tasked with implemented DEIB in concert with DEIB being an org-wide priority.?But the organization has to invest in making sure the DEIB leader can actually lead, can actually have the organizational power and budget to make changes.

Danielle Little, SHRM-SCP :?Hot take coming in...I do not think a DEIB leader is important. I think it is far more important that DEIB work is led by heads of HR. For all of the reasons that Josh named. And because so much of DEIB initiatives fall under the Talent/People/HR umbrella.

Follow-up question:?I’m curious if the DEIB work is held within HR, wouldn’t they become HR initiatives and potentially lack engagement from executive leaders outside of HR?

Danielle Little, SHRM-SCP :?You know, DEIB work already risks being siloed to HR teams. DEIB leaders have a multi-functional role, which can be good, but can also dilute their power and ability to make important structural changes. You have to consider how much power a DEIB leader will really have to influence leaders and change in your organization.

5. DEI trainings are a big investment. How can we make sure that trainings have a sustainable effect on inclusive culture??

Amber Madison :?I love trainings. That is my area of expertise at Peoplism . But #training cannot be your entire DEIB strategy.?When you take a training-only approach it's basically like saying to your company “We are taking no organizational responsibility for DEIB. Hey people of the company, this is on you.”

What we recommend is to have a holistic DEIB strategy that includes both trainings and process changes or company-wide initiatives (e.g. changes you are making to your hiring process, performance management process, benefits, etc. to build a more equitable and inclusive environment.) This shows employees that DEIB is an organizational priority and that the organization as well as individuals are expected to take action.

Now when it comes to trainings the most important things you can do to make them impactful are:

• Connect them to an overall strategy.?Employees shouldn’t feel like they are doing this one-off training that is completely disconnected from their day job.?What you want to do instead is say something like: “This year we are priortizing XYZ DEI efforts for ABC reasons. One place where we saw low scores was manager feedback, which is critical for employee development. For that reason we are training all managers to give more equitable and inclusive feedback in the hopes that scores in this area improve in our next survey. This will be one of our major equity initiatives this year.”
• Measure the impact long after the training is over.?The point above alludes to this, but you want to hold people accountable for changing their behaviors and actually using the new information given to them in the trainings. Do this by telling employees that the effect of the trainings will be measured in a few months with a follow up survey. This communicates that you will be looking for impact long after the training is completed. After all, the point of a training isn't to sit on zoom for two hours and have a good (or bad) time, what you really want to see is behavior change some months later.

After all, the point of a training isn't to sit on zoom for two hours and have a good (or bad) time, what you really want to see is behavior change some months later.

• Report back on the impact.?Once you’ve measured the impact, report back to employees what improved and where there is still opportunity for more improvement.

Of course for this to work you want to make sure that you’re putting your employees through trainings that have a track record of measurable results (e.g. that long term behavior chante). You can check out what I mean by that in one of our?case studies on Peoplism’s manager trainings here.

Phew! So many great questions. We hope you feel empowered to ask your own—this work is hard, and you deserve support. Feel free to?submit your own question to Dear Peoplism and it may be featured in our next newsletter.? And if you want these answers delivered to your inbox every 2 weeks (or so), sign up here.

Warmly,?

The Peoplism Team

Peoplism is a leading DEI consulting firm known for impact. Visit us here.